New Asterix book sees the famous duo fight a propaganda war

The new Asterix edition sees the duo fight against their Roman foes in a propaganda war alongside a character inspired by the real-life Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, to be released on October 22.

 

The 36th book entitled "Asterix and the Missing Scroll" will be the second written by Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrator Didier Conrad in the internationally acclaimed series which centres around the adventures of a tribe of Gauls resisting Roman occupation.

 

Cartoonist Didier Conrad said that the idea of information and the control of information came to them early on, an idea which was then set during the Gallic Wars.

 

"The central theme is really information and the control of information, and the dramatic notion that surrounds this and we see immediately the conflits that come from this and of course this wasn't enough, there needed to be something else, so the basis was the Gallic Wars and Jean-Ives cared a lot about this because he read all about it but I didn't so I couldn't bring any information about it myself. The coming together of these two topics naturally created this story," he said.

 

Ferri described some of the new characters set to appear in the new escapade, some inspired by famous people of today, including publicist and image adviser for former Presidents Francois Mitterrand and Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Seguela.

 

"We thought about which public figure from our time can inspire us and for Caesar's adviser, we quickly thought of Jacques Seguela but again this is not a physical caricature, it's rather the representation of his character, the adviser in the shadows. And then the other public figure, a kind of Gallic journalist, it was more Didier who wished for the character to physically look a bit like Assange even if we can't really say it's him but it's this type of character," he said.

 

Ferri and Conrad, who took the helm of the famous series from the original co-creators Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny, were met with critical acclaim with their first collaboration "Asterix and the Picts" released in 2013 which took them to ancient Scotland.

 

Ferri expressed his delight at the series' original creator Uderzo's seal of approval who he considers to be the most important reader.

 

"Uderzo is a sober person and is quite reserved. So he was happy with the original idea and for us it was a source of great satisfaction because he is our best reader. If Albert is happy, then this is a good start," he said.

 

In total, some 360 millions of Asterix books have been sold in the world, translated in 111 languages, according to the official website.  — Reuters